Choosing a new customer relationship management (CRM) solution can be tedious for anyone saddled with this task. But the process of choosing a solution doesn’t have to be time-consuming and cumbersome. Nor should it cause major upheaval in an organisation’s operations, creating significant inconvenience for users. The last thing any manager wants is the lack of interest or even defiance behaviors from unhappy employees “forced” to use an application that doesn’t suit their needs or that is too complex to be adopted quickly.

Instead, a CRM solution should be implemented so that users are fully supported and feel that the tools at hand are helping them to get the job done, not adding an extra element of responsibility to their workdays. What executive does not want is regular frustrations and resistance to change while trying to encourage employees to use new applications, as lack of user buy-in is one of the most common reasons for CRM project failure.

The application chosen should, in fact, increase efficiency. And hand in hand with efficiency, there should be either a reduction in costs, or an increase in profit. Ideally, organisations who invested in CRM application should get quantifiable return on what can be a significant investment. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been designed primarily to address these concerns and make it easier for the decision making process.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a full customer relationship management solution with marketing, sales and service capabilities that are fast, familiar and flexible, helping businesses of all sizes to find, win and grow profitable customer relationships.

WORKS THE WAY YOU DO
Integration with the familiar tools users already use and the automation of everyday tasks should be key goals of any software solution. Microsoft has gone beyond the minimal level of compliance by delivering native integration with the Microsoft Office System, as well as with new wizards that help users increase productivity for sales, service, and marketing functions. Microsoft Dynamics CRM integrates directly into Outlook and other Microsoft Office applications including Microsoft Office Word, Excel®, and PowerPoint®, enabling your employees to work within the familiar, comfortable environment. The result: everyone in your company will quickly be able to begin using Microsoft CRM effectively to  manage sales, services, and marketing processes.

Manage and develop customer relationships more easily by handling customer management tasks—including sending and managing e-mail, storing business contacts, and managing your appointment calendar—without leaving your email interface, be it Outlook or Lotus Notes with 3rd party application.
Access customer information anywhere through enhanced data synchronization and mobility features that will enable your sales, marketing, and service personnel to take advantage of the tools and information they need no matter where they are.
Improve productivity through automation using built-in intelligence that simplifies and automates everyday tasks.

Create personalized experiences through workplace profiles that provide employees with instant access to the customer information and activities they use most.

WORKS THE WAY YOUR BUSINESS DOES
Every company has its own processes, its own culture, and its own way of reaching out to customers. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a flexible solution that can be quickly customized to your company’s current needs while providing a flexible, scalable platform that will grow as your business expands.

Meet your company’s business requirements by tailoring Microsoft Dynamics CRM to match your company’s specific business situation. Intuitive, Web-based design tools make it easy to modify application forms, data fields, and relationships.
Streamline business processes through process automation that lets your company transform repetitive tasks into powerful, automated business workflow.
Integrate applications and information using Web services to create seamless links across systems and platforms within your company and out to partners and customers.
Measure the success of your business processes with powerful tracking and analytic tools that help sales managers monitor their business and make better decisions more quickly.

WORKS THE WAY TECHNOLOGY SHOULD
Mergers, acquisitions, and years of shifting IT priorities have left many companies struggling with the problem of how to integrate a wide range of often incompatible legacy applications. Microsoft CRM 3.0 Professional was created to enable companies to standardize and consolidate customer information no matter where it is created or stored.

From more reliable installations or upgrades to improved performance, more streamlined deployment and management, and enhanced security, Microsoft Dynamics  CRM provides capabilities that will minimize administrative and operational costs and improve user productivity. Designed to provide a highly extensible platform, Microsoft CRM can be easily customized to help meet the specific processes and requirements of your company’s sales, marketing, and service organizations.
Protect the security of customer information with a security enhanced platform designed to help keep your company’s business data safe, secure, and confidential.
Get up and running quickly with streamlined installation processes and enhanced diagnostic and troubleshooting tools that significantly reduce setup time.
Rapidly search across large volumes of customer information with optimized data views and queries.
Increase system availability with fault tolerance and failover protection. Deploy Microsoft CRM within clustered Web, database, and e-mail server environments.
Monitor the health of your CRM environment with centralized management and notification tools.
Install Microsoft CRM automatically with or without a local data store. The zero-footprint browser client provides a rich CRM experience with full application capabilities.

IT’S ABOUT THE BUSINESS — NOT THE TECHNOLOGY
A cornerstone of Microsoft CRM is customer choice. Microsoft CRM offers a broad scope of architectural, deployment and licensing options designed to provide the maximum in flexibility to meet your business needs both today and tomorrow.

Microsoft CRM addresses the key opportunities — and challenges — that determine the success or failure of any CRM initiative: user adoption, business fit, and total cost of ownership. The Microsoft CRM hosted solution is built on the exact same code base as Microsoft CRM Professional Edition, providing a choice of user interface, on-line or off-line usage, flexible solutions and deployment, and the ability to migrate as your business needs evolve.

And when there is a need for customer to switch the deployment and licensing option (e.g. from hosted-subscription to on-premise), it is a simply a “backstage” change – in terms of hardware location and/or commercial licensing arrangements. There will be NO major reimplementation effort involved. And, as far as the users are concerned, it is totally transparent. It is still the same familiar application that they have been using.

To learn more about Microsoft Dynamics CRM marketing, sales and customer service capabilities, visit Microsoft Dynamics CRM  home page http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/default.mspx